In the land of Gods and MonstersI was an AngelLiving in the garden of evilScrewed up, scared, doing anything that I neededShining like a fiery beacon

You got that medicine I needFame, Liquor, Love give it to me slowlyPut your hands on my waist, do it softlyMe and God, we don’t get along so now I sing

No one’s gonna take my soul awayI’m living like Jim MorrisonHeaded towards a fucked up holidayMotel sprees sprees and I’m singing‘Fuck yeah give it to me this is heaven, what I trulyWant’It’s innocence lostInnocence lost

In the land of Gods and MonstersI was an AngelLooking to get fucked hardLike a groupie incognito posing as a real singerLife imitates art

You got that medicine I needDope, shoot it up, straight to the heart pleaseI don’t really wanna know what’s good for meGod’s dead, I said ‘baby that’s alright with me’

No one’s gonna take my soul awayI’m living like Jim MorrisonHeaded towards a fucked up holidayMotel sprees sprees and I’m singing‘Fuck yeah give it to me this is heaven, what I trulyWant’It’s innocence lost
Innocence lost

When you talk it’s like a movie and you’re making meCrazy –Cause life imitates artIf I get a little prettier can I be your baby?You tell me, “life isn’t that hard”

No one’s gonna take my soul awayI’m living like Jim MorrisonHeaded towards a fucked up holidayMotel sprees sprees and I’m singing‘Fuck yeah give it to me this is heaven, what I trulyWant’It’s innocence lostInnocence lost

-Gods & Monsters by Lana Del Rey

I was going to write a narrative to go with each piece of lyrics, but then I decided the song spoke better for itself AND for me than I could… but tried to use color instead to match the emotion for me. Did it work? Well enough for me 🙂

I’m attaching a fan vid first because it’s where I discovered this song and I love the video. HOWEVER, if you want to avoid spoilers for “Lost Girl” season 4 don’t watch this first version. Watch the second instead.

Non-spoilery song with lyrics:

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Since I haven’t posted many fanvids lately, and now I’m in a “Lost Girl” sort of mood, here’s one more for Kenzi, who is my heart as well… she don’t take shit from NO one…! (Both fanvids were made/edited by The Suffering Fool)

So much has changed this last week. Internal changes. Things shifting and circling. It’s kind of been a lot of personal enlightenment, all at one. Shifting, circling, new perceptions, understandings… SO MUCH. And I really wish I could write about it right now. But it’s so overwhelming I can’t even think to put the words to it,

I will say that I watched “The Fault In Our Stars” twice this week. and it has changed my life. That sounds sort of cheesy if you’ve seen it… but it really really has. I want to write, but I’m still sorting. Hopefully things settle a bit soon and I can try and make sense of it all. I know it’s all good shifts, but it gives me anxiety anyway. Been hard to keep my brain unoccupied enough to sleep because it keeps dwelling on this stuff. But I think I’m on to something….!

I’ve been putting this off and putting it off for so many reasons. None of which have anything to do with this. I love blogging my ups and downs. And I’ve really missed it the last couple of months. But I haven’t really been in a great place, and you know how it is… well at least for me, I tend to hide until the shit goes away or it’s really repressed enough that I can just pretend to be normal and ok. But that hasn’t been happening. Instead, more shit just keeps appearing.

I’ve been kind of aware of some of what I’ve been hiding from. But a couple days ago I totally broke down and admitted I hate this ostomy. (Surgery went find, medically speaking, my ostomy is great and my health is much improved.) But mentally, I’m not dealing with it as well as I thought I could. See, when I was raped 16 years ago, the ONE thing I found was that I could survive anything. I made that my rock. It was my foundation and I built my world around it. No matter how bad it got, I survived that, I can survive this. It rather pisses me off that this lifesaving ostomy that I should be grateful for is causing that foundation to crumble. I literally found myself praying to die the other night. I don’t pray. And I knew the prayer was pointless because God doesn’t answer my prayers. But I felt so alone. Even though my dear husband spent half the day with his arms around me in support… I feel pointless, I feel cheated. For the first time in my life I hate my body. I can’t bring myself to take a shower. It’s so strong. I know I need to, I get all my stuff ready, slowly, but when it comes down to it, I just can’t. I hate dealing with the ostomy in the shower. So I go a week without it, until my hard-wired need to meet certain social expectations finally wins out, and I force myself through it. Purely so I can go to therapy the next day and keep my secret that i am barely holding it together.

Right now I feel jealous of everyone who is dead. It was just a year ago one of my best friends took his life and all I can think is that I wish I could trade him places. And Hope… dear Kyra. I feel terrible that she felt so alone. One of the first things I found out when I started reading blogs again was that she was gone. It broke my heart. She was the first person to ever follow my blog, comment… and hers was the first blog I ever followed. She wa such a beautiful, intelligent person. and I’m sorry she’s gone. And yet I can’t help but envy her just a tiny bit. And I feel terrible about that. Sometime I want to punch myself in the face for being so done by sometimes comparably small things.

My therapist thinks maybe its time I consider ECT. I’m beginning to think he’s right, though I have mixed feelings about it. I know some of you, my readers, have had it, and I would really appreciate some feedback. If you feel like you don’t want to share on the blog, let me know and we can email each other or something. I really want to know all the good and all the bad before I make a decision like this. But something’s gotta change ’cause I can’t keep playing by the rules. I’m just done.

Wasn’t going to post tonight, but right now I’m pissed. And afraid to speak out about it, and pissed that there’s any reason to be afraid. I love Felicia Day. She’s a role model, not just for geeks and gaming, but just for a person like me, who yes happens to be a geek, but also just happens to be a women who wants to embrace who she is and shine as herself. I’m endlessly fascinated by her talent, her creativity, her passion, and her acceptance of who she is. Not to mention her ability to find time and opportunity to experience so many of the different things she’s interested in. She has always appeared to be to be intelligent and genuine in what she does. I about peed my pants when she was cast on Supernatural. The pairing of my favorite role model and my favorite TV show??? NOTHING COULD BE GREATER.

And now? She’s being attacked, threatened. Like many other women in her industry right now. And it’s not with criticism, valid or otherwise. We’re talking rampant rape and death threats made to her and others. It makes me sick. What is wrong with these people?

“I haven’t been able to stomach the risk of being afraid to get out of my car in my own driveway because I’ve expressed an opinion that someone on the internet didn’t agree with.

HOW SICK IS THAT?

I have allowed a handful of anonymous people censor me. They have forced me, out of fear, into seeing myself a potential victim.

And that makes me loathe not THEM, but MYSELF….

…I have lived a large part of my life ruled by negative emotions, mainly fear and anxiety. From my experience of working through those issues, I have this to say: Steeping yourself in the emotions that you’re surrounding yourself with, of hatred and bile and contempt, is ultimately not destructive to others like you want it to be. It’s destructive to yourself. “

It’s not hard to see why I read those words and get affected. Of course I understand them. And that just makes me take it even more personally.

I’m not a gamer, so I can’t comment on the main issue surrounding all of this. And I realize these kinds of threats are nothing new to the world, obviously- it’s why most of us are writing here. But I don’t give a shit what the cause is, people who make these kinds of threats should take a left and head straight down to hell. Right fucking now.

Felicia Day, I think you’re the awesomest awesome to ever awesome and I hope this passes sooner than later.

OK. Borrowing some courage from Alex tonight. (This morning? Feels like night until I’ve slept a few hours, so… still Tuesday to me!)

I commented to her that there were things I was afraid to write. But I started this blog so I could tell those stories. So, I’m going to try to tell them in pieces. Bite-size chunks.

Who was I? Sometimes I don’t remember. She is so far away and I don’t remember how to see the world through her eyes. I was invisible, most of the time. I learned to cope with the world through observation, rather than interaction. Receiving attention was painful. To my very core, I was so uncomfortable with it. And yet, I was constantly seeking it through one way or another. But if I had it- I couldn’t dare to act like I deserved it. There’s video of me, my senior recital. A whole frickin’ audience there to listen to me sing for like, an hour. I had a good voice and I knew it, but I couldn’t let myself act like it. I loved to sing. I hate that video. It’s painful to watch because I can still feel that pain when I remember it. KNOWING that… I can’t even find the words. But instead of smiling and interacting with an audience, like I KNEW a good performer would, I pretty much just ignored them. No eye contact, no smile, it’s so awkward. It’s not like I didn’t know I was doing it, but you couldn’t have forced a smile on my face for the whole damn universe. I was physically incapable of doing it. I mean, I could smile “off-camera” but if it was in anyway attached to my own self-worth, I just couldn’t. I was not meant to shine in the light. That’s what I believed. And I couldn’t dare to change that. The very thought was offensive.

And I kinda hate her.

I honestly don’t know where those beliefs came from. I’m lucky when it comes to family. Lots of love and support, and yet…

Man, this was unbelievably hard for me to write. But that’s good. It felt different writing about it, kinda like when I wrote about self-harm. This is a really really deep piece of me that I hate to look at. And I right now I feel sad in my heart for how much I resent that poor stupid girl who couldn’t do any different. (I know she wasn’t stupid- don’t judge me while I’m busy judging myself!) And now I’ve kind of ruined it by making a joke. That’s what happens when I get close to something in therapy, shed a few tears, make a sarcastic funny comment, and then it’s gone. I’ve disconnected. But… I’m learning. And it kinda amazes me right now, how much easier it is to sit here and feel this shit while blogging. This just might be the safest place in the world for me right now, and that’s kinda weird.

I feel like I want to verbally and emotionally vomit all over my keyboard. How’s that for imagery? But I’m not sure where to take this story next. SO… bite sized chunk. And I’ll just sit here while I feel it. I think that’s good.

New plan. Post before reading. I get so into reading what everyone else is writing and then I can’t find the words to post about my own stuff. So here’s the dealio: As I mentioned before, I’ve been sort of overwhelmed with some things. My parents were here a couple of weekends ago, which was great- they came specifically to help me clean up and organize my apartment (Trust me, I needed outside help!). But I was so sick the whole time. I didn’t want to eat, I didn’t want to do anything, I couldn’t sleep, and dang it, throwing stuff away is HARD for me. It was work, just sitting there watching my mom go through stuff asking me if I was keeping this or getting rid of that. So I was exhausted after they left. Slept for like 24 hours after that. (But my apartment looks much better now, less depressing, so thanks mom!)

Anyway, I’ve just been getting sicker and sicker. Feeling crappy more often than not. No appetite, losing weight, not sleeping, more pain. I finally heard back from my surgeon who had taken my biopsy slides and history to a “conference” she has with other IBD specialists in the area. They all pretty much agreed that I had chronic pouchitis and it wasn’t going away. I could keep trying to treat it medicinally, but she (and they) felt like it was really only worth it if I needed that peace of mind of feeling like i had exhausted every single option. They all felt that it would probably end the same way- needing to have the pouch removed and having a permanent illeostomy.

I had already decided after the miserable weekend with my folks, I was having surgery of some sort. I am just too exhausted to keep going like this and to not be able to enjoy spending time with loved ones. We moved to this town a year ago and I literally don’t know anyone here because I rarely leave the house. No friends. No family. Just the hubster- who is wonderful and all, but ya know we need more than that. So I’d been doing the research. I spent a lot of time over at jpouch.org and I did a lot of research on k-pouches and the BCIR. These are basically similar in that they still use an internal pouch like I have with my j-pouch, but instead of wearing an ostomy bag, you plug a catheter into it to empty a few times a day. But no outside appliance to wear. So it sounds pretty good. But I can still get pouchitis with it and likely would since I’ve had it already. The pouchitis might cause symptoms like cramping, stomach pain, and fatigue but I wouldn’t have to worry about urgency and continence anymore. The other drawback is that there are only a few places that do k-pouches or BCIR. And if I have a problem then I have to fly to wherever I had the surgery done intially to get it fixed. So it could end up being costly and still not resolve some of my main issues, namely the fatigue.

So I had a lot of decision making to do there. But I’ve decided the traditional illeostomy has the best chance to make me feel better so that’s what I’m doing. (It’s possible I may be able to try a k-pouch later down the road, but that depends on different things.) So Nov 7 I am having the surgery done. When I come out of it, I’ll have a hole in my stomach with my gut sticking out and what they call a “barbie butt”. Yeah. They’re gonna totally sew up my back end. Which, I think right now, is bothering me more than anything. And it’s really hard to put words to it, but I think that when you’ve survived bodily trauma, you become extra protective of your physical identity. And now, once again, I feel like life is just laughing at me right in the face. Growing up LDS, you’re told “your body is a temple; that’s why you don’t get tattoos and piercings, etc” But I feel like “God/life/chance/universe/whatever” has done more damage to my body than anything I have ever chosen to do. At least when I get a tattoo or pierce my nose, or color my hair blue and green, it’s my choice and it comes from a place of honoring my body and the person who lives in it.

*sigh* I’m delving into a new topic there… anyway, bottom line. Big life changes goin’ on, and I HATE CHANGE. Do NOT WANT. But such is life… mine anyway.

=-=-= For the record, I do know that some people out there have it far worse or have had similar experiences. It’s not the end of the world for me. It’s just tough going through and I need to talk about it somewhere!

I’m going to add this video. The song has been in my head all day… it makes me grieve for lost innocence and lost dreams… and… just makes me feel so many things.

Holy anxiety, Batman! Been back and forth to bed a few times and it’s not taking so I guess I’ll write. Sometimes that helps. A while ago I mentioned a video that gets my little PTSD heart all teary.

Try to forget that this is a Supernatural fanvid. It’s sort of “alternate universe” anyway, but it shows this character who has literally been to HELL and seen all sorts of awful in his life. And then see him trying to live a normal life. Wake up in the morning… those moments you lie in bed, wondering how you’re going to get through another day. Then putting on your best face and going to work. Then the moments when that unreal reality sneaks its way through. And you try to lose yourself in the monotony of repetitive tasks, till another reminder finds its way in. See the contrast between the memories and the present day… and how the memories themselves seem to be an alternate universe. Not really real. Not until you are reminded again.

This video could possibly be trigger-ish for some, so keep that in mind before watching. For me, this was like finally being able to SEE the experience that just doesn’t have words. It was affirmation. But it is somewhat graphic and I don’t want it to be something that causes a flashback or anxiety itself.

video by Loki/SecretlyToDream “Till the Sun Starts To Cry”

The first time I saw this video, I cried and cried. It was beautiful to me and I couldn’t stop watching. I would be REALLY interested to know what ya’ll think. Does it still translate if you’re not familiar with the show?

Someone else wrote about the topic of self harm the other day and I thought I would share my own experience as it is part of the road I have traveled in learning to cope with trauma. You can read the original post at http://heathershelpers.org/2014/10/13/self-harm/

(picture was found on pinterest, don’t know who to credit)

I remember the first time… I supposed anyone would. It was… 15 years ago? I was trying to deal with the never ending anxiety and constant state of alertness I was in. I had a little corner in my bedroom, I lit some candles and some incense and tried to meditate. I hadn’t ever really tried this before, unless you count prayer growing up… and even then- I’ve always had a hard time being in the moment- connecting to it. I can recognize that now. But growing up, I didn’t know those words… have the language. I don’t know why I disconnect, disassociate. It’s just always been a coping mechanism I guess. But in the year after the rape, I started to learn the words, and I started to recognize the ever present state.

I had also just started massage school. So I was learning new things, about body awareness, mindfulness… things that sounded wonderful and I KNEW they could help me. (It sounded so easy in those days….) So yeah, candlelight, incense, deep breathing… try to clear the mind… HA. I kinda freaked out. A lot. And I remember looking at that incense stick kind of curiously. And I wanted to feel it. I picked the stick up and just slowly pressed it into my arm. Just drawn to it. And it was such a relief! Suddenly clarity! CONTROL! visibility. Things my insides did not have. It was… peaceful. Just what I had been looking for! I pressed it into my arm again, feeling that connection to my pain. And I just started repeatedly jabbing the thing all over my arm. I don’t know how many times. But it was almost like taking a paint brush and painting pretty little dots. Springy… from one to the next. It was… happy.

(It’s really weird looking at this memory and smiling… because I know how fucked up it is.)

And when I was done, my arm was a mess… but I was proud of it in a weird way. I remember the next day, I was sitting in class… and I had pulled the sleeve up on my shirt just a little bit. I want to say it was accidentally… but I’m not honestly sure there wasn’t some part of me that wanted someone to see it. And I remember I caught the girl sitting next to me staring at it, and I said something crazy about grease splatter and I’m sure she didn’t buy it, but I think she was the only one who really saw it. Eventually they healed. I remember it kind of scared me, the power I felt when I was doing it, and the ease at which I got caught up in it… I only did that one other time, years later. But I remember for the next few years, when summer would come and my arms would get a little color, you could see all these white spots, scars all over my arm. And I always liked the way they looked. I admit, even now, I wish I could still see them, but they eventually faded away.

I think it was a while before I tried anything else. A couple of months at least. I think I’d had some medication changes that made my anxiety skyrocket… I can remember taking my lunch break at work and going to the grocery store where I bought a steak knife. And I can remember going back to the parking lot at work, sitting in my car and lightly running it all over my arms. Just enough to leave scratch marks.

Here’s the thing- I’m kinda a wuss about pain… well, I used to be anyway. I don’t know if I ever cut deep enough to draw actual blood. So I call myself a scratcher 🙂 But yeah, the steak knives and the “scratching”- that became the method of choice for… the next 2 or 3 years?

The last time… I had started taking ambien again to help me sleep. The drawback was that I looked forward to that first hour after taking it, because it was the best I felt every day. (I missed the whole drinking, partying, etc stage in life so ambien was really my first experience with anything remotely mind-altering.) Ambien always made me feel so damn creative! And I used to write a lot. So I remember reading some things I had written the next day. And it freaked me the hell out. I can’t even remember what I wrote, but it was about cutting and blood and it was just messed up. And I started to worry that I’d do something while on Ambien and go too far. Control was a big part of the need to cut, so losing control just wasn’t going to work for me. I decided I was done.

The next time I felt that urge so powerfully, I tried painting it. I went to Walmart, got a cheap canvas and some paints. I came home and started painting. First the flesh, then the cutting. And it actually worked for me. So well, that for a long time, all I had to do was look at my painting and it brought relief.

I still get the urge. And there have been a few times I have come pretty damn close to giving in. But it’s been about 12 years now since I painted that picture. Being stubborn sometimes plays into my favor… and now I’ve got the control issue working for me instead of against.

So that’s my story. I thought the post I linked to above went into why people self- harm and explained it pretty well, so I didn’t repeat. I also thought she listed some great alternatives… coping strategies. I think we all have our reasons and our methods for getting through it. And I’m not really sure why, but I really felt the urge to share my own experience here. Read Heather’s post above, if you haven’t. People are complicated things and we deal with things in complicated ways. It’s so hard to know how to help or react to someone who is dealing with some of these things and one of the things I hope to accomplish in keeping this blog is normalizing what might seem like really abnormal behavior. I’m not in any way saying that self-harm is a healthy coping strategy, but I think it helps to know that we are not alone in our experiences. We are normal people just trying to get by.

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Full Disclosure: You know how when you share something like this you kind of get that little bit of anxiety about what people will think when they read it? Someone in group therapy once derisively called me a “mormon drug user” when I mentioned ambien. And it really stung. I have anxiety that people will read this and not think my experiences are valid… (“ambien? ha… what a sheltered little girl…”) (“only a scratcher? That doesn’t count!”) I actually KNOW that people won’t think that, but I’m still afraid they will? Hmmm….I’m really in a sharing mood right now.

So it’s been awhile since I had my last BIG anxiety attack (the kind where I want to crawl walls and rip my hair out.) I don’t know why things were going well- had decided to attribute it to therapy. And that probably is it. BUT as I posted previously- I am having ANGER these last few days. And I don’t deal well with anger. I just don’t even know what to do with it. Few things really even make me angry, but not feeling in control and feeling invalidated or used will make me angry. My last post- the car smashing- that was about not feeling in control with my health issues, which I’ve already ranted about, so I won’t again. (not right now, anyway!)

I had trouble sleeping that night, all the anger and anxiety. Finally started to doze off a couple of hours before my dental appointment, but you take what you can get, right? I kid you not, I had just relaxed when I got a bunch of txt messages. From my brother. Who I’m going to call Alec. I ADORE my brother. I can’t even tell you how awesome I truly think he is. But he has the same capacity for just pure #$%#$^.

I crave closer relationships with all of my family. Alec in particular is very distant. He has told me in the past that he avoids me because he can’t deal with what happened to me (the assault.) That hurts like hell, but I have to respect where he is too, ya know? At the same time, he’s… not stable. Just a few years ago, he stabbed himself in the stomach with a huge knife because he was angry. I’m not really sure if that was a suicide attempt, but there have been those. And he takes his anger out on himself. I worry about him all the time, but never really know how he is doing because he tries to hide everything. So Wed, when I got his txt asking for money because he’s going to get evicted… I was sick with worry and anger. Anger because I know he is trying to manipulate me right now (this is the only time he makes contact) and worry because I don’t want to see him in trouble! So- both anger triggers hit. And everything just snowballed into that awful anxiety again.

How do you help someone you love that refuses to be helped? I know this post probably makes no sense whatsoever. I feel protective of my little brother and so frustrated at the same time that I have left a lot of things unsaid. On the plus side- it sounds like he was able to avoid eviction for now. So there’s some relief. But sadness too.

This may seem so random, but I think of my brother when I hear this song. It sings to my worst fears, but also my wishes to understand better what he is going through so I could help. Except, if he doesn’t want my help… do I have any right to try to give that to him? I don’t know any of these answers. So here’s a song to ruin your day…

"If a kid asks where rain comes from, I think a cute thing to tell him is, 'God is crying', and if he asks why God is crying, another cute thing to tell him is, 'Probably because of something you did'." ~ Jack Handey